The terror trailAkshardham, a post-mortemDionne Bunsha in Gandhinagar Praveen Swami in New Delhi, Frontline, Volume 19 - Issue 21, October 12 - 25, 2002The siege and the subsequent storming of the Akshardham temple complex in Gandhinagar, which claimed 37 lives and left 81 persons injured, shocked, but did not surprise everyone. In some senses, the real surprise is that the tragedy did not happen sooner.

Temple puts past behindMeghdoot Sharon, Gandhinagar, The Indian Express, October 7, 2002On Monday, the Akshardham temple complex at Gandhinagar was a picture of serenity. Throughout the day, people kept filtering in through the main gate and almost all visited the main temple and exhibition halls.

Modi tries to woo minorities using Akshardham cardTimes News Network, October 06, 2002AHMEDABAD: Shifting from his earlier rhetoric, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi used the Akshardham incident to woo the minorities at Patdi and Shankheshwar by saying, "We (the BJP) insist that the terrorists were Pakistanis, but the Congress says that they were Gujarati Muslims."

South Asians in U.S. remember GandhiBy Vasantha Arora, Indo-Asian News ServiceWashington, Oct 2 (IANS) A group of South Asians held a vigil at Mahatma Gandhi's statue opposite the Indian embassy here to call for religious harmony in India.

Competitive bandhsBy Dipankar Gupta, The Hindu, October 1, 2002Political demonstrations of grief are often a smokescreen to avoid performing public responsibilities.

Muslim leaders decry temple attackTimes News Network, September 30, 2002JUNAGADH: After Friday’s ‘namaaz’ at the Jama Masjid here, Muslim leaders condemned the terrorist attack on Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar and expressed sympathy with those killed and injured in the attack.

A query for the CMThank heavens, September 26 was peaceful. So what happened on February 28?Editorial, The Indian Express, September 28, 2002The contrast is simply too stark to escape unremarked. Gujarat went up in flames during the VHP-sponsored bandh on February 28, the day after Godhra; on September 26, the bandh called by the VHP after the Akshardham Temple outrage passes off peacefully, except for a few relatively minor incidents. And the explanation won’t be fudged. It was not, as Modi has insisted, thanks to the ‘pseudo-secularists’ who ‘did not use a particular language to describe the event’.

Jamaat-e-Islami, Syedna condemn temple attackTimes News Network, September 28, 2002AHMEDABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Gujarat while condemning the terrorist attack on Akshardham Swaminarayan temple at Gandhinagar recently, has expressed shock and sorrow over the killings of innocent people. The Jamaat described the attack as an act of cowardice.

Police rule out local hand in attackTimes News Network, September 26, 2002AHMEDABAD: Officials pursuing investigations into the bloody storming of the Akshardham temple are almost ruling out the possibility of the two terrorists being Gujaratis, despite the letters found on their person proclaiming that they were out to avenge the killings during the riots.

Temple attack not to avenge Gujarat riots, says ModiTimes News Network, September 27, 2002AHMEDABAD: Harping on the “conspiracy theory,” the state government on Thursday categorically refuted that the Akshardham siege was to avenge the mass killing of minorities in Gujarat after the Godhra massacre.

Read the riot act, Modi plays ballMilind Ghatwai, The Indian Express, Ahmedabad, September 26, 2002Told clearly that the Centre and the party could not afford a repeat of the carnage that followed Godhra, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the police, the administration and the VHP worked in tandem to ensure that today’s bandh passed off peacefully.

Attack on human valuesBy Habibullah Badsha, The Hindu, September 27, 2002It is sad that a country, which has been known for its tolerance, love and pluralism, has become the battleground of communalism, violence and hatred. The attack on the devotees of the Swaminarayan Temple at Gandhinagar is an attack on human values and the social fabric of the country.

People from areas like Naroda-Patia, which witnessed a massacre during the last VHP-backed bandh on February 28, have started moving to camps fearing another round of reprisals.

VHP bandh begins, Army on standbyTimes News Network, September 26, 2002AHMEDABAD/VADODARA/SURAT/RAJKOT: As the VHP-sponsored Bharat bandh began on Thursday, the Modi government is taking no chances with the law and order situation in the state.

Living in fear: strike to bandh On knife-edge, courtesy VHPAnand Soondas And Basant Rawat, The Telegraph, September 26, 2002The VHP has refused to give any assurance that the Bharat bandh will be peaceful. “If their (people’s) resentment is not properly channelised, there will be widespread and large-scale violence,” warned secretary Surendra Jain, who is also the Bajrang Dal convener.

Modi's Gujarat: whose failure is this?Hari Jaisingh, The Tribune, September 26, 2002The indiscriminate killings of devotees in the Akshardham temple complex in Gandhinagar are too shocking for words and deserve worldwide condemnation. The gruesome incident once again brings to the fore the serious flaws and distortions not only in governance in Gujarat but also in political thinking and responses.

Religion didn’t do it Murderers in Gujarat belonged to no communityT. V. R. Shenoy, The Indian Express, September 26, 2002There is no justification for the kind of murder committed at Akshardham. No speeches and no taunts, no matter how ‘provocative’, justify the wanton killing of innocents in a house of worship. It needs to be emphasised that the terrorist doesn’t belong to any community, he has placed himself outside civilised society.

In unity is our strength The crazed, diabolic attack in Gandhinagar demands an united nation and peopleEditorial, The Indian Express, September 26, 2002The terrorists who stormed the temple have been defeated physically. But that was the easy part. The far greater challenge lies in defeating their project of hatred and communal polarisation. If we fail to do this, those who masterminded Tuesday’s attack would have ultimately succeeded. The recent history of Gujarat is just too calamitous to risk a repetition.

Attack fallout: Cong, BJP may have to rework strategyKingshuk Nag, Times News Network, September 26, 2002AHMEDABAD: When the news about the storming of Akshardham temple became public on Tuesday evening, a pall of gloom fell on the Congress headquarters in Ahmedabad. With great difficulty, in recent weeks, Shankarsinh Vaghela had managed to put up a semblance of a fight against the BJP, but in one stroke the terrorists seemed to have created conditions handing over the state on a platter to the saffron party. "We are gone," confessed a Congress leader to The Times of India at that time.

A heinous actEditorial, The Hindu, September 26, 2002THE HEINOUS TERRORIST attack on the Swaminarayan sect's Akshardham temple complex in Gandhinagar (Gujarat), which clearly ranks among the most dastardly of such assaults on innocent civilians outside Jammu and Kashmir, deserves to be condemned in the strongest of terms by everyone who has even a modicum of faith in basic human values and civilised behaviour.

Reflections on Gandhinagar Temple AttackMukul Dube, September 25, 2002Terrorism has always been thought a bad thing. In this year since the WTC attack, though, it has achieved a prominence which it never had before: possibly because Mr. George W. Bush, Jr., the Ultimate Arbiter, declared it not just a bad thing but the worst.

BJP says protests against attack should not trigger tensionNew Delhi, PTI, September 25, 2002Anxious to prevent recurrence of post-Godhra communal violence in Gujarat in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Gandhinagar temple, the BJP today said protests against yesterday's incident should ensure no tensions are created and asserted Chief Minister Narender Modi's Gaurav Yatra did not trigger the attack.

Red alert IndiaEditorial, The Hindustan Times, September 25, 2002To any adversary of India, it might seem that the easiest way to set Gujarat aflame again is to organise an attack on innocent devotees.

India Blames Pakistan for AttackBy Rupak Sanyal, Associated Press Writer, September 25, 2002GANDHINAGAR, India (AP) - India deployed thousands of troops to prevent an eruption of Hindu-Muslim rioting Wednesday after attackers besieged a major Hindu temple complex in a raid that left 32 people dead, most of them worshippers.